Review: My Immortal-The Vampires of Berlin by Lee Rudnicki

Title: My Immortal-The Vampires of Berlin
Author: Lee Rudnicki
Series: The Vampires of Berlin # 1
Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Format: E-book
Source:  Bewitching Book Tours
Pub. Year: 2012
Purchase: Amz/ B&N
I received this novel free of charge from BBT in exchange for an honest review.

Blurb from Amazon:
She was beautiful. Her high cheekbones and burgundy hair gave her a distinctive Eastern European look. Her face gave away no secrets; her distant stare made it seem as if nothing else in the universe existed. Her clothing was minimal; she wore a white ankle-length nightgown and was barefoot, despite the fact that most of the ground in Berlin was covered with broken glass and other dangers. Somehow, her feet were uninjured. The German soldiers remained still, their weapons trained on their unannounced guest. “They are coming for me,” she whispered. The young vampire was clearly afraid of something…

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Random: What a strange method of telling a vampire story

This has to be one of the strangest frame story that I have read but I love it. The best way to picture this book is like one book was hollow out to make a secret compartment and what was place in the compartment was a story about World War II with a dash of vampire thrown in it.

The frame story is of Professor Richter in Germany possibly revealing Operation Tristan (from WWII) to the world and the United States sort of butchering his attempt to do so. It leads to official legal documents being reveal but all we get is the cover page. From the cover page forward, it is a story about a German soldier saving the young vampire from the blurb while trying to escape the downfall of Berlin. It is a story, not a legal document that follows which is odd to me. With the legal intro look, I was falsely expecting a legal overview/report on what is Operation Tristan. It even ends with a legal notice at the end of the German soldier’s story and continues on to show how Professor Richter has affected the world. The legal notices add symmetry to the book which is nice. That’s why I said that it is a strange way to tell a story because the legal notices are supposed to claim the story as factual but the story within the legal notices has parts that Sebastian and Wolf (main characters) could not have been party to. It raises questions as to how the document came to be and why is it in a story format instead of a legal, almost autobiographical account of what went on in Berlin. The format is not what I expected; it’s different; different is good.

The strangeness of the book continues with how the two stories are told. The frame story reads like a spy thriller; an agent stumbles into a big secret and gets caught up in it. It threw me off balance because I kept waiting for the vampires to show up and the vampires didn’t. It’s a mini-thriller novel at first. With the legal document intro, it switches into historical war fiction and this is where the vampires show up. It goes full out with World War II history especially with the German and Russian armies. It is very detailed with what soldiers do and how the war has framed their thinking about humanity. For some, it hardened them and others-value life more.

I’m sort of obsess with the format of the book but the characters are decent and detailed characters. Sebastian is the one who refuses to leave Eva, the young vampire, and Wolf has no choice but to drag Eva along for the ride. Their reaction to Eva and other vampires is not common but considering they are trying to escape Berlin before the Russians launch the final attack on the city, I supposed they would not dwell on the existence of vampires; they are surprisingly comfortable knowing. Heydrich is Hitler’s supernatural key (I guess); not a nice guy at all. The vampires are also interesting because they are fighting for humanity instead of fighting for vampires. They are also classical vampires meaning they can turn into bats. Yeah!

Overall, it is a very good story with a strange way of detailing a “legal document.” It is mainly the World War II story as the core of the book and the modern story is just framing. I’m looking forward to reading the next book because the ending is a hella of a twist. I didn’t really expect it. (But this book has definitely not been what I expected at all…in a good way).

5 BB- Total Keeper

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56th in the  150+ Reading Challenge
Also qualifies for: First in a Series, E-book, Men in Uniform, Where are you reading?-Germany